Solus Trumpet Ensemble
Matilda Lloyd, Aaron Akugbo, William Foster, Tom Griffiths and Katie Lodge – trumpet, piccolo trumpet, flugelhorn and bass trumpet
| BENJAMIN BRITTEN | Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury |
| GIOVANNI GABRIELI | Canzon II a 4 |
| GABRIEL FAURÉ (arr. Will Foster) | Pavane |
| HENRI TOMASI | Suite pour Trois Trompettes i) Havanaise ii) Lento égéen iii) Danse Bolivienne |
| WILLY BRANDT | Country Pictures i) In the Church ii) Under a Lime Tree iii) At the Feast |
| MAURICE RAVEL (arr. Will Foster) | Sonatine i) Allegro ii) Largo iii) Vivace |
| SAMUEL SCHEIDT | Canzon Cornetto |
| ROBERT STEADMAN | Delta IV |
| BÉLA BARTÓK (arr. Will Foster) | Sonatina, Sz. 55 i) Dudások (Bagpipes) ii) Medvetánc (Bear Dance) iii) Finale |
| CLAUDE DEBUSSY | Syrinx |
| JOHANNES BRAHMS | Geistliche Chöre Op.37 i) O bone Jesu ii) Adoramus Te iii) Regina coeli laeta |
| CARL NIELSEN (arr. Will Foster) | 5 Klaverstykker, Op.3 i) Folketone ii) Humoreske iii) Arabeske iv) Mignon v) Alfedans |
| HOAGY CARMICHAEL | Stardust (arr. Eddie Lewis) |
| TRADITIONAL | Three Spirituals (arr. Jean-Francois Michel) |
Formed by Matilda Lloyd, international trumpet soloist and BBC Young Musician Brass Final winner in 2014, the Solus Trumpet Ensemble features five of the UK's leading young professional trumpeters, who regularly perform with top orchestras and chamber ensembles such as the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and European Union Youth Orchestra.
The concert features a range of works by revered composers of brass music such as Gabrieli, Tomasi and Brandt, as well as new arrangements of pieces never before heard on brass. The programme travels from the US to England and then all around Europe, spanning continents and musical periods and finishing off with a jazzy arrangement of the spiritual "Battle of Jericho"!
To find out more about the artists, see www.solustrumpetensemble.com and www.matildalloyd.com
Photo credit: Sam Dye
Review
ALL THINGS TRUMPET COME TO SKIPTON
Skipton Music enjoyed an evening of "all things trumpet" last week, played by the Solus Trumpet Ensemble and led by its brilliant founder Matilda Lloyd. Unlike other brass ensembles, the Solus ensemble consists literally just of five trumpets, from the low pitched "Flugelbone" – a sort of compact keyed trombone – to the ultra-high piccolo trumpet.
Your reviewer has to confess that he is a little wary of concerts by unusual ensembles where most of the music has to be specially arranged from pieces originally written for different forces. But with five players of such skill and sensitivity such worries were misplaced. The trumpet is an instrument of enormous flexibility and wide range, allowing for a vast array of effective arrangements. And the delightful programme was skilfully chosen both to show off the trumpet's versatility and to celebrate a wide range of different styles and periods.
With such variety to choose from every listener will have had their own favourites. The canzonas by the baroque composers Giovanni Gabrieli and Samuel Scheidt seemed tailor-made for the ensemble, but equally effective were the transcriptions of piano pieces by Bela Bartok and – amazingly – Maurice Ravel. Among the twentieth-century pieces I was particularly taken with the suite for three trumpets by Henri Tomasi, a French composer who surely deserves to be far better known. And at the end of the concert the ensemble let their hair down with arrangements of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" and three American spirituals, with Tom Griffiths showing that you don't even need a piccolo trumpet to play stratospherically high.
It was heartening to see three very young people in the audience; I hope they enjoyed the evening as much as I did. And let's hope that they in turn will bring their children to enjoy live concerts, of such a high standard, in the years to come.
Charles Dobson